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(ZIMPAPERS) What WikiLeaks tells us about US

What WikiLeaks tells us about US
Saturday, 10 September 2011 23:25 Opinion

Diplomats as spies: As part of an intelligence gathering effort, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered US diplomats overseas and at the UN to collect personal information on foreign officials including credit card and air travel numbers and biometric information.

While this may not be shocking to foreign policy gurus, it is certainly embarrassing for the United States and calls into question how much — and how frequently — the role of diplomat and spy has been blurred.

The US has lost everyone’s trust: Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini called the release the “September 11 of world diplomacy”, in that everything that had once been accepted as normal has now changed. He is right. Many people — allies and foes alike — who have supplied information to American diplomats will be asking: Can the US ever be trusted? Some will blame WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for that.

But the US political establishment must blame itself. In these cables, we see American politicians and diplomats bad-mouthing their so-called allies. What a bombshell! The US is saying a lot of unsavoury stuff about its beloved “friends”. Surely, Assange cannot be blamed for exposing the double-speak?

Hypocrites are everywhere: All political parties have their fair share of people who indicate left but turn right. They shout slogans in public, but bad-mouth their parties in private. Zanu-PF, MDC-T, MDC, Zapu, Mavambo. They all have their fair share of hypocrites. But when gold rusts, what will happen to mere iron?

Undiplomatic name-calling: Several of the cables have US diplomats describing foreign leaders in unfriendly terms — from comparing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler to calling Russia’s Vladimir Putin “alpha-dog” and French President Nicolas Sarkozy “the emperor with no clothes”. In the Harare cables, American ambassador Christopher Dell describes President Mugabe as “a brilliant tactician and has long thrived on his ability to abruptly change the rules of the game, radicalise the political dynamic and force everyone else to react to his agenda”. But the same ambassador goes on to make unflattering statements about the President’s “ego and belief in his own infallibility; his obsessive focus on the past as a justification for everything in the present and future; his deep ignorance on economic issues (coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him the authority to suspend the laws of economics, including supply and demand); and his essentially short-term, tactical style”.

On Morgan Tsvangirai, Dell says the MDC-T leader is “a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him. He is the indispensable element for opposition success, but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power”. Dell says of Arthur Mutambara: “In many respects he’s a light-weight who has spent too much time reading US campaign messaging manuals and too little thinking about the real issues.”

On Welshman Ncube, Dell said the MDC leader “has proven to be a deeply divisive and destructive player in the opposition ranks and the sooner he is pushed off the stage, the better. But he is useful to many, including the regime and South Africa, so is probably a cross to be borne for some time yet”.

Mental slavery is still alive: A good 31 years after Zimbabwe’s hard-won independence, there are very senior politicians in this country who worship Western governments. All along, the public assumption was that imperialist treachery is the lifeblood of the MDC formations. But it is stunning to suddenly discover, through WikiLeaks, that some very senior people in Zanu-PF are consorting with the West and actively subverting our sovereignty.

Appearance is not reality: Any entity — be it an individual or a political party — has both a public persona and a private persona. Although we are shocked every time a scandal is brought to our attention, the truth is that there is always a difference between what we see (or what we think we see) and objective reality. Your friend can be more dangerous than your enemy. Unthinkable alliances can be forged behind the party leader’s back, raising serious questions over matters of betrayal and loyalty. To remain in control, and to avert palace coups, party leaders will have to devise new methods of monitoring the political universe. Even your most trusted ally is not a saint. Conversely, your most hated adversary is not always a devil. Political leaders — and the masses they lead — must always question and challenge what they believe to be true.

Every man has a price: It is safe to say that most politicians are driven primarily by money. Give them what they want and they will do anything for you. Forget all the rhetoric on the importance of principle. “Principle” is the motto of those who have not been offered a tempting sum. Once a politician tastes illicit money, all innocence is lost and there is no going back.

Unflattering assessments: It appears most party members lack the spine to speak out against their leaders in official party meetings. But when they sit down with foreign diplomats, the party members do not hesitate to criticise or even belittle their leaders.

International law is a charade: The WikiLeaks cables show the low regard US secretaries of state hold for international treaties that bar spying at the United Nations. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, systematically and serially violated those treaties to gain an incremental upper hand. And they did it in writing! That Clinton now decries Julian Assange's truth-telling as an “attack” on America but excuses her cavalier approach to treaty violation tells you all you need to know about US diplomacy and “international law”.

The US thrives on manipulation: The American government has always denied accusations of meddling in the internal politics of sovereign states. But the WikiLeaks cables provide proof that the US has sought to manipulate Zimbabwe’s elections, all in the hope of achieving a pre-determined outcome that preserves American interests. As Jack Shafer rightly observed, the history of scandal in America is the history of institutions and individuals routinely surpassing our darkest assumptions of their perfidy. Illegal regime change is not a figment of Zanu-PF’s imagination; it is the bedrock of Western foreign policy.

Watch your telecoms: Americans are quite clever on this one. To prevent local intelligence services from snooping into their telephone conversations, they use satellite phones and other state-of-the-art technologies which make it difficult, if not impossible, for local spooks to intercept.
The cables show that during election time in Zimbabwe, the Americans use satellite phones (on contract lines, rather than pre-paid) for secure communication. They also do away with the usual TelOne landline telephones, preferring CDMA handsets.

The story does not end there. The cables also allege that the US embassy worked closely with Econet founder Strive Masiyiwa to set up a parallel system for relaying election results straight from polling stations to a command centre, presumably in a bid to thwart alleged Zanu-PF machinations to rig the elections.
But in terms of law, only the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has the power to announce election results.

Intelligence services must introspect: There are lots of questions here. When all these senior politicians and influential personalities were having plenty of meetings with US diplomats, where was the Central Intelligence Organisation?

Where was Military Intelligence?
Where was the VIP Protection Unit?

Someone, somewhere, must have known or suspected what was happening. Are we to assume that all these meetings were detected by the local intelligence community?
If so, then the nation could afford a sigh of relief and take comfort from the knowledge that someone is taking care of national security. If not, then the intelligence community must seriously introspect and take decisive action.

Labels: AMBASSADOR, ARTHUR MUTAMBARA, CHRISTOPHER DELL, WIKILEAKS

posted by MrK @ 3:43 PM